Museum Blog

Articles tagged Mars Exploration: 3

Front and center is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner, which landed on Mars in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder Project. On the left is a Mars Exploration Rover Project test rover that is a working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. On the righ…

This 360-degree panorama from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the rugged surface of "Naukluft Plateau" plus upper Mount Sharp at right and part of the rim of Gale Crater. The April 4, 2016, scene is dominated by eroded remnants of a finely layered ancient sandstone deposit. Cred…

Credit: NASA
A Mars orbiter NASA plans to launch in the 2020s could carry the mechanisms needed to collect and store sealed Martian surface samples for a return trip to Earth, an agency official said here Oct. 5.The orbiter would be NASA's next strategic mission — that is, a mission custom-order…